An inside look at four of America's favorite antique shows plus insight from many others.

Follow by Email

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Managing Change

We are told early in life to expect change. Some of our youngest lessons involve the change that growth brings. "The only constant is change". For something that appears to be so inevitable why are we for the most part horrible at managing change? Let's face it, we live in a world that most of us would have had a hard time imagining 20 years ago. The Antiques & Art business has been affected by a difficult economy, globalization, changing consumer tastes, behavior and trends and the fact that we no longer have main-stream media doing our marketing and pr for us. If I had a dollar for every time I heard the phrase "good old days" in reference to the business, I would be in French Polynesia on my own private island instead of blogging on a cold Sunday morning listening to Blue's Clues in the background.

I am taking a personal pledge to strike the phase "good old days" from my vocabulary. The good old days by definiton (old days don't come back- if they did, I would like a do-over on my 21st birthday) are not coming back. I would like to replace the phrase with "good new days". I encourage others to adopt a Good New Days Policy. We can impact Good New Days. How can we embrace the challenges presented to the business and plan for the "Good New Days". I relish the challenge and hope you do as well.

2 comments:

How timely. As a "junk" seller I've been giving a lot of thought about market changes/fluctuations, etc. You can freak out or you can adapt to the changes. It means buying different things, displaying them in a manner that appeals to a newer crop of buyer and embracing things as they are now. We can repurpose old item WHILE repurposing our views on the market itself. Thanks for sharing.